Australian Shaun Davidson Still On The Run After Brazen Escape From Kerobokan Jail

Davidson and three other inmates escaped through a 13 metre tunnel under Kerobokan.

Australian Shaun Davidson is still on the run in Bali on Tuesday morning, more than 24 hours after he and three other inmates made a brazen escape from Kerobokan Prison.

It's believed the four prisoners tunneled out of the notorious Bali jail using a pre-existing waste tunnel which came up just outside the prison walls. The tunnel is just 50cm by 75cm in diameter, 15 metres long and filled with water, Indonesian authorities said.

Just 10 jailers guard the more than 1,300 inmates at any one time in the horrendously overcrowded facility. The prisoners were discovered missing at the 8am morning role call on Monday, with authorities saying they likely escaped after 6:30am when they were released from their cells for the day.

It's not clear why Davidson -- who had just 10 weeks left of his 12-month sentence -- made a run for it, but a source from Kerobokan told Fairfax Media he may have been trying to extend his prison sentence.

Fairfax Media
West Australian Shaun Davidson had just 10 weeks of his one year sentence left when he escaped from Kerobokan Prison on Monday.

"Davidson had made no secret of his intention to avoid being sent back to Australia," the source told Fairfax Media.

"He actually likes prison. I can well imagine he escaped with the aim of being caught and extending his sentence in Kerobokan, which is far more comfortable and drugs more easily available than in an Aussie prison."

But Bali corrections chief Surung Pasaribu said that under Indonesian law, the men would not get extra jail time for escaping if they were recaptured.

"Maybe we should change the law," he told reporters in Indonesia.

"If they damaged property during their escape they will be separately tried for that. If anyone assisted them they would also get prison time."

Supplied
Bali authorities found the exit to a 13 metre-long tunnel just outside Kerobokan's walls, which they believe the men used to escape.

The West Australian had been due to face court in Perth on January 28, 2015 for possession of methamphetamine and cannabis and two other offences, but skipped the country.

He spent a year living it up in Indonesia, before being arrested for using another man's passport, which he claims he found in his hotel room. The passport had been reported missing by its owner in 2013.

At the time of his sentencing in 2016, Davidson told Fairfax Media prison life was "alright" so long as you had outside support and he had been running boxing classes for fellow prisoners.

"It (Kerobokan) is a bit different to expectations I guess," he told Fairfax.

"It's pretty hard for some of the locals in there but. If you don't have money, you don't eat -- they don't give you food, they don't give you a bed."

The three other escapees -- Indian Sayed Mohammed Said, Bulgarian Dimitar Nikolov Iliev and Malaysian Tee Kok King -- were serving longer sentences of 14 years, seven years and seven and a half years respectively.